The annual interrogation has begun! Every year, people ask me how my Christmas was. And every year, I politely explain that I’m Jewish, and that my Christmas day was thus not spent cooking, carving turkey or comparing gifts with family members around the Christmas tree. Looking suitably mortified, people then begin apologizing profusely for the misunderstanding and then generally ask “So, it’s just a normal day for you then? So, what did you do?”
I probably have a little more experience than most people in terms of religious holidays, as I have spent quite a few Christmases with my Christian family members, as well as having celebrated Jewish holy days. And so, I have developed an interesting religious understanding of both sides of the coin, which has come in rather useful! I always look forward to Chanukkah and I succeed in doing Christmas shopping like a demon (as an aside, I am extremely chuffed with the gifts I chose for people this year), while not getting overly bogged-down by the commercial nature of the holiday, as I always find something creative to do with each gift (although baking and making my own wrapping paper may have been going too far this year). It basically comes down to the fact that I really draw satisfaction from finding the perfect gift for my friends and then adding a personal touch to it, and I like being able to do something special for those around me, regardless of the religious connotations of the holiday. And I’m not at all bothered when people wish me a “Merry Christmas” – I just take it as them wishing me well over the festive season! Oddly enough, this year really has felt a bit strange, and it may well be because of me wishing people a “happy Chrismukkah”! Yes, I did say Chrismukkah – I have combined Christmas and Chanukkah to form this unique holiday, and have used it to convey general festive greetings to people, with some degree of amusement!
And now allow me to provide a little cross-cultural insight into what I have done today, on the 25th of December! I woke up at 6:21am, to the sound of my phone receiving a text message. I was still slightly asleep, and so didn’t bother to read the message, but rather rolled over and went back to sleep until 7:30am or so, at which point I woke up and wondered who on earth would have sent a message so early. I narrowed it down to 3 guesses – my boss, Richard, who could be at work, checking up on the dog with tick-bite fever, Helen, the other receptionist from work, who has a 6 year-old daughter, or Anthony, who has notoriously strange sleep-cycles. Having read the message, I discovered that it was Helen, and guessed that her daughter had likely woken the entire household on Christmas morning in anticipation of opening presents! Having had breakfast and then retreated back to bed to read for an hour, I decided to wash my hair, in the hope of feeling more human. It helped, but only slightly, as I realized that my Myprodol hangover was here to stay. I had taken 1 tablet the night before because of the intense pain which has been creeping from my left hip, along my leg and down to my knee for the past 2 days, and with little hope of seeing a physiotherapist, I had decided to drug myself to see if it would help at all. Unfortunately, the Myprodol only succeeded in knocking me out for 10 hours (explaining why I fell asleep after receiving the 6:21am SMS), and did little to ease the pain in my leg. Having checked my Facebook account and email, and feeling terribly unmotivated, I retreated to my room to elevate my leg (which only made my foot go numb) and lost myself in Marion Keyes’s “Sushi for Beginners”. And believe me that when I say “lost myself”, I really do mean it! Somehow, the Myprodol hangover produced not only serious fatigue (which is still present, 25 hours later!), but also resulted in me empathizing with the characters in the book to a rather extreme extent! I not only read 300 pages of the book in 1 day, but also felt like I had become a character (and not in that wretched post-modern way of ‘relating to the text because of individual subjectivity’ stuff) in the book! In 1 day, I feel like I’ve moved to Dublin, become a magazine editor, fallen for a stand-up comic and been cheated on by my stand-up comic boyfriend with my best friend, and ended up… Well, I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, in case you ever feel compelled to read the book! Fair to say that at this point, I’m quite glad that I was reading light-hearted chick lit, rather than some murder mystery or the usual books on mental illness that I usually read! I also feel compelled to explain that I don’t usually read chick lit – I got the book from book-club, and having enjoyed some of the author’s other books, decided to read this one as a change from my usual reading choices!
So, other than having sorted through my interesting stash of Christmas presents, and having sent a few “happy Chrismukkah” SMS’s, today has been a rather relaxed day! I have also received a few interesting SMS’s, from Kirstan (who hopes that I find a special someone beneath the mistletoe), Paul (who wished me a “Messy Chris Hani Car”) and Luke, who sent a suitably “normal” message by comparison! And that has been that – aside from having spent the day wondering whether mistletoe is a shrub, tree or vine, and whether I could buy a pot-plant of the stuff, just for fun!
Please note though, that this is by no means an accurate account of what most Jewish people probably do on Christmas! This is just what I happened to do today, on account of some Myprodol, cloudy weather, a sore leg and a good book! In any case, a happy Chrismukkah to you all!
I probably have a little more experience than most people in terms of religious holidays, as I have spent quite a few Christmases with my Christian family members, as well as having celebrated Jewish holy days. And so, I have developed an interesting religious understanding of both sides of the coin, which has come in rather useful! I always look forward to Chanukkah and I succeed in doing Christmas shopping like a demon (as an aside, I am extremely chuffed with the gifts I chose for people this year), while not getting overly bogged-down by the commercial nature of the holiday, as I always find something creative to do with each gift (although baking and making my own wrapping paper may have been going too far this year). It basically comes down to the fact that I really draw satisfaction from finding the perfect gift for my friends and then adding a personal touch to it, and I like being able to do something special for those around me, regardless of the religious connotations of the holiday. And I’m not at all bothered when people wish me a “Merry Christmas” – I just take it as them wishing me well over the festive season! Oddly enough, this year really has felt a bit strange, and it may well be because of me wishing people a “happy Chrismukkah”! Yes, I did say Chrismukkah – I have combined Christmas and Chanukkah to form this unique holiday, and have used it to convey general festive greetings to people, with some degree of amusement!
And now allow me to provide a little cross-cultural insight into what I have done today, on the 25th of December! I woke up at 6:21am, to the sound of my phone receiving a text message. I was still slightly asleep, and so didn’t bother to read the message, but rather rolled over and went back to sleep until 7:30am or so, at which point I woke up and wondered who on earth would have sent a message so early. I narrowed it down to 3 guesses – my boss, Richard, who could be at work, checking up on the dog with tick-bite fever, Helen, the other receptionist from work, who has a 6 year-old daughter, or Anthony, who has notoriously strange sleep-cycles. Having read the message, I discovered that it was Helen, and guessed that her daughter had likely woken the entire household on Christmas morning in anticipation of opening presents! Having had breakfast and then retreated back to bed to read for an hour, I decided to wash my hair, in the hope of feeling more human. It helped, but only slightly, as I realized that my Myprodol hangover was here to stay. I had taken 1 tablet the night before because of the intense pain which has been creeping from my left hip, along my leg and down to my knee for the past 2 days, and with little hope of seeing a physiotherapist, I had decided to drug myself to see if it would help at all. Unfortunately, the Myprodol only succeeded in knocking me out for 10 hours (explaining why I fell asleep after receiving the 6:21am SMS), and did little to ease the pain in my leg. Having checked my Facebook account and email, and feeling terribly unmotivated, I retreated to my room to elevate my leg (which only made my foot go numb) and lost myself in Marion Keyes’s “Sushi for Beginners”. And believe me that when I say “lost myself”, I really do mean it! Somehow, the Myprodol hangover produced not only serious fatigue (which is still present, 25 hours later!), but also resulted in me empathizing with the characters in the book to a rather extreme extent! I not only read 300 pages of the book in 1 day, but also felt like I had become a character (and not in that wretched post-modern way of ‘relating to the text because of individual subjectivity’ stuff) in the book! In 1 day, I feel like I’ve moved to Dublin, become a magazine editor, fallen for a stand-up comic and been cheated on by my stand-up comic boyfriend with my best friend, and ended up… Well, I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, in case you ever feel compelled to read the book! Fair to say that at this point, I’m quite glad that I was reading light-hearted chick lit, rather than some murder mystery or the usual books on mental illness that I usually read! I also feel compelled to explain that I don’t usually read chick lit – I got the book from book-club, and having enjoyed some of the author’s other books, decided to read this one as a change from my usual reading choices!
So, other than having sorted through my interesting stash of Christmas presents, and having sent a few “happy Chrismukkah” SMS’s, today has been a rather relaxed day! I have also received a few interesting SMS’s, from Kirstan (who hopes that I find a special someone beneath the mistletoe), Paul (who wished me a “Messy Chris Hani Car”) and Luke, who sent a suitably “normal” message by comparison! And that has been that – aside from having spent the day wondering whether mistletoe is a shrub, tree or vine, and whether I could buy a pot-plant of the stuff, just for fun!
Please note though, that this is by no means an accurate account of what most Jewish people probably do on Christmas! This is just what I happened to do today, on account of some Myprodol, cloudy weather, a sore leg and a good book! In any case, a happy Chrismukkah to you all!
1 comment:
I totally read that book! It was about 4 years ago, I was housesitting and needing something fluffy to read after ploughing through Catch-22 which made me all depressed...
I don't remember much, just that the stand-up comic was a douchebad and something about salsa-dancing? And a 7-dwarves diet?
Weird, the things that we hold on to...
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